Diablo II

I am not an ARPG fan. I repeat: I am not an ARPG fan, which makes my love for Diablo II that much more special. I have only been playing this game for roughly a year due to said aversion towards ARPG games. It's a game I always respected, but figured it wouldn't be my thing. Finally, at the insistence of my best friend who's been a fan of the game since its release, I decided to give it an honest shot and man, was I rewarded in spades. What always held me back, and continues to hold me back from RPGs in general is the tedious and often mind-numbing amount of time spent towards the customization of the character; shit I've never cared about in a video game. Just let me pick a class and get me into the fucking game. Thankfully, Diablo II wastes no time and does just that. The game has a great pacing through all of the acts, matched with a very satisfying feel to the action-packed combat. The story is well-written, the dialogue and voice acting are superb, and the level design is distinguishing and well-implemented. But what really sets this game apart from others of its ilk is the atmosphere, which oozes from every nook and cranny of this game. The music, the lighting (or lack thereof), the environments, the echoed, sometimes dripping sound effects... it all really pushes this game to another level that I haven't really felt from, well, very few games in general. This has easily climbed its way into my top 15 games of all time, and is a game I would happily recommend to anyone to try.

It will be interesting to see if this game, close to its vanilla form, gets remastered at some point; Starcraft doesn't look too bad in 2018 I don't think DIablo 2 will look that bad either.

As for the game itself: another pointless, time-wasting, item grind of a game, but its visual cues are very satisfying.